WORK‐RELIEF LAW IS TARGET OF SUIT

New York State's eightmonth‐old work‐relief law is being challenged before a threejudge Federal Court. convening in Buffalo next Thursday, on the ground that it allegedly violates the Federal constitutional ban on involuntary servitude and Federal requirements for clue process.

In reply, the state is reporting a new regulation to recognize “transportation hardship” that would excuse certain employable relief recipients from having to travel to state employment centers to pick up checks and take available jobs or training.

The new regulation requires the local welfare agency either to arrange transportation, where public or private facilities are lacking, or to provide that the client may report to the job office by mail. The state also reported changes to be sought in the law.

‘Six Months’ Report

In its first six months, the new law led statewide to 15,755 welfare clients taking jobs and 7,554 going into training, while 23,354 were dropped from relief rolls for noncompliance. During December, 52,988 were referred to job offices, and of these, 3,186, or 6 per cent, were terminated for noncompliance.

The court challenges have been pending since the law took effect July 1, filed as a class action. During this time. 55 recipients have been granted temporary court orders allowing them to get their welfare checks by mail.

A. 114 ‐ page brief submitted for the plaintiffs by Michael A. O'Connor of the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo and Neighborhood Legal Services of Buffalo and Dennie R. Yeager and Mayer G. Freed of the National Employment Law Project here has described hardships for clients classified as employable—sometimes by error.

Cost of Travel Cited

The lawyers cited cost of travel to job offices and job interviews, which recipients must meet from their subsistence relief grant. The law, they said, has required even recipients in training courses to go to job centers, disrupting, classes.

Job referrals without regard, to skills or background, they said, have led to such cases as a “student referred to job as go‐go girl, refused on moral grounds,’ risking loss of welfare aid.

The plaintiff arguments included the following:

fine Thirteenth Amendment bans involuntary servitude. and any exception must provide safeguards for due process, as in the case of criminals or in the work incentive program for welfare enacted by Congress in 1967.

cWhen a recipient is declared employable, he has not been told why or given an opportunity to contest the classification before incurring the law's obligations.

The law provides that employables unable to get regular jobs or training must work off their welfare grants in public jobs without regular wages or benefits, for the same grant an unemployable recipient gets.

The State's Response

The state contended in a brief that its “welfare reform program had broad benevolent social purposes and was not repressive measure designed solely to alleviate the state's fiscal crisis.”

The state said there was flexibility in the rules, conceded errors in classifying employables, and asserted that “excluding the first month, when the program was just getting under way, the State Employment Service actually developed jobs for 20 to 25 per cent of those referred to possible jobs.”